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Tuesday, 20 January 2015

Part 1 is here. This second part
addresses the Haass ‘analysis’ of Northern Ireland as articulated in a recent interview. (Although, calling it the Haass analysis is a bit of an
overstatement as he was not the first to use some of these arguments.)It also explains his failure as the basis of
his approach was based on outdated, outmoded and intellectually impoverished
ideas of Northern Ireland and Unionism plus good old cliché.

Haass begins with:

“…there was a
feeling that change would disadvantage them.”

First, Haass fails to
notice the change that had occurred in the immediate run up to his talks had
disadvantaged them. The design of the agenda was a rather obvious clue e.g.
parades and flags. Second, we will deal with the cliché of ‘change’. Change can
be good or bad, it can be progressive or regressive. Blind acceptance of something simply because
it is ‘change’ is dumb. Anyone with any sense assesses it and makes their
judgement on what is proposed. Third, in
the last 20 years Northern Ireland has underwent a process of the most
fundamental change. When Unionists have
seen value in it, they have agreed with it and worked it. Fourth, it appears to assume Unionism is
happy with the status quo and should be grateful for what isn’t changed.

Then we have:

“I think the republicans and nationalists
were more willing to entertain the possibility of change”

Nationalism and
republicanism were willing to entertain proposals on issues like the Maze when
he offered them more than they had managed to get negotiated with Unionists or
support his pet project. If you give
people what they want, it isn’t difficult to get their support. However, it doesn’t help so much when you are
trying to achieve a multi-lateral agreement that needs the buy-in from more
than one section at the table.

However, these are
matters are mere trifles compared with his poor choice of comparison. He begins with the South African and De Klerk
comparisons. Haass argues De Klerk:

“…understood that the future of his country meant them giving
up advantaged positions".

Haass’s analysis of
De Klerk is legitimate if somewhat rose-tinted.
Apartheid was abhorrent and from its introduction it was on borrowed time. Its basis was an idea that the world was
systematically beginning to reject and would continue to do so. It survived through the relative economic
success of the country, the instability in Africa as the decolonisation
processes often failed to establish genuine democracies and the Cold War.

The growth in the
diplomatic strength of the developing world made it more difficult for Western
democracies to quietly ignore the issue leading to sanctions. This began to impair the economy but more
importantly it combined with the culmination of the Cold War.

Within South Africa,
the ANC’s terrorist campaign was completely ineffectual. However, maintaining control in the townships
was a real problem. Also within the
townships, alternatives to the African National Congress were developing and
they were as much the driving force behind the protests, riots and strikes in
the 1980s.

These series of
factors led to a debate within the highest echelons of the white community in
South Africa. Even within the Broederbund,
the highly secretive and powerful
Afrikaner secret society that had driven apartheid, papers were circulating that
apartheid’s days were numbered and the need to manage its end rather than allow
collapse.

The factors that had
allowed apartheid to survive had gone or were rapidly disappearing. If they waited much longer the potential
partner on the black side, the ANC would not be in a position to deliver (arguably
the position the Israelis found themselves in with the PLO). There was enough consensus at a senior level
and the broader white community that a managed process was much preferable to a
collapse. While the Western media
fascinated on the likes of the AWB they often overlooked the plain fact that
the clear and sustained majority of whites voted for De Klerk to negotiate the
end to apartheid. They knew collectively
that the jig was up.

This is the first
reason why the comparison with South Africa is a poor one. Apartheid was an abhorrent system that’s time
was unsustainable. The maintenance and development of the British Union state
is not an abhorrent system. They are not comparable ideologies. It would be like looking for answers to the
challenges of modern social democracy by examining the Italian fascist
state.

The use of the South
African comparison by some is not to provide something of use. In the political mainstream, its primary
purpose is to delegitimise Unionism. For
those who used terrorist violence, it was about the dehumanisation of Unionists
and to legitimise their murder campaigns.
Reliance upon it by someone tasked to facilitate an agreement is thus
unwise.

The second reason is
South African comparisons tend to feed the MOPEry syndrome, a syndrome that
sections of both communities are susceptible too. Northern Ireland was not Apartheid South
Africa. Northern Ireland was not Nazi
Germany. Northern Ireland was not the
Deep South of the USA. It did have
significant and far-reaching problems but the elevation of our problems to bad
comparisons doesn’t help. Reliance upon
it by someone tasked to facilitate an agreement is thus unwise.

However, the greatest
flaw in Haass’s analysis was this:

"Those who
held the preponderance of power - and essentially that would be more the
unionists backed by the British Government - needed to be willing to meet
others at least halfway, and as of last December they were not, but again I
would hope that a day will come when they will see it not only in their
collective interest but also in their more narrow interests."

First, Unionist political
power was based on the 1921-72 parliaments.
Unionism was stripped of political power in 1972. As an Alliance politician once correctly
pointed out Unionism had gone from a position of supreme power to the place
where the Lord Mayor of Belfast couldn’t change a bulb in a lamp-post, or a
more recent example, can’t keep the national flag on City Hall. In 2014, Unionist access to political power comes
at the price of a system of communal protections and being in government with
the people who murdered us for over three decades. This is not a situation of privilege,
ascendancy or domination. Thus Haass is
using an analysis that is 42 years out of date.

Second, is the belief
that the London government was on Unionism’s side is best responded to as
ROFLMAO. It is based on the lazy
assumption that the state and Unionists interests are always the same. It fails to recognise the potential
divergence of interest in a unitary state such as the UK.

There are also
multiple examples of how this is simply not the case - the Anglo-Irish Agreement,
the secret messages to the Provos asking London to be spared bombs, the no
selfish strategic interest declaration, the Framework Documents and Downing
Street Declarations (Unionism has had to spend years talking London down from),
Blair perpetual desire to be over-generous to Sinn Fein, institutional
discrimination in police recruitment, the ‘invisible’ OTR scheme etc etc.

A government paper of
a British–Irish exchange from 20 years ago when some civil servant raised ‘What
about the Unionists’ was about as far as it went and even then it usually resulted
in a proposal watered down rather than stopped.
In the modern era, Unionism did and does not have an external political
protector. Thus Haass is using an analysis that is too simplistic, contradicted
by the available evidence and misreads the power relationships.

Now, perhaps an
expectation of being up with historical detail and realities is somewhat
unfair. However, an ignorance of the
basics of politics is not, even for a career diplomat. The logical conclusion
of this argument is that it is Unionism’s ‘leadership’ role to feed its
political base a series of shit sandwiches and tell them to not only endure it
but to enjoy it. Now the machinations of
London, Dublin and Nationalism would be so much easier if Unionism were like
this. However, it will not be the basis
of strategic or electoral success for Unionism or a functioning prosperous Northern
Ireland.

Minoritarianism

Haass is not alone in
holding these type of views. It is a
common view among officialdom in London, Dublin and many of those who inhabit
or inhabited the quangocracy. It is the
core ideology of the Northern Ireland Office to this day, which a weak
Secretary of State invariably crumbles to (as the Parades
panel U-turn demonstrated). The
prevalence of it is why those Unionist and Loyalists who think Direct Rule is
the answer are plain wrong. Under that
system, this is what would be driving our rulers with no checks or balances.

It even had a voice
in Unionism early on in the peace process. Norman Porter essentially advocated
a reductionist Unionism. Its premise was
as long as Northern Ireland remained part of the UK then nothing else really
mattered. Unionists don’t want to live
in such a soulless place.

I define this
thinking as ‘minoritarianism’.

Essentially, Northern
Ireland will be shaped and designed to satisfy the interests of the minority
only. It is the mirror image of the
majoritarianism of 1921-72 except Nationalism is to be the beneficiary not Unionism. This ideology/groupthink is progressed in the areas that
Unionists have no say or highly restricted influence e.g. NIO, PSNI/Judicial
system, the quangocracy (especially equality and good relations) and local
government were Unionists are not in control.
This is why the anti-Unionist identity agenda has been progressed at
these levels and not through the devolved institutions.

Now this ideology is
not limited to Northern Ireland. In most
western democracies, the growing diversity within our societies has led to
similar approaches where the focus is upon the needs, preferences, desires and
wishes of the minorities. Minority ethnic groups had and do have legitimate
needs but sections of the left and so called liberals (often middle class
whites) went beyond that to attack mainstream identity.

In the past few
decades while the right were generally winning the economic arguments, the left
were generally winning the social ones.
In a Northern Ireland context, this meant they either had common cause with
Nationalism’s identity agenda or they fulfilled the role of useful fools. The results are the same.

Your average Unionist
and Loyalist wonders why the treatment meted out to them does not receive much
of a hearing or sympathy. This
commonality in approach and ideology means this type of behaviour in Northern
Ireland has been conditioned into people both here and further afield as
‘normal’ and thus to be accepted.

This
‘minoritarianism’ has contributed to ever larger swathes of people feeling
utterly disconnected with politics and public life across Europe. It has not and will not prove healthy neither
for our societies nor our democracies whether it is Germany, France, Great
Britain or Northern Ireland.

In all this there is
an underpinning attitude that Unionism is some sort of political lab rat that
is expected to sit there while others experiment on how much it will take. This ‘lab rat’ does not know its own
interests. Everyone knows better than it.
This is certainly a superior attitude with the clear risk it becomes a
supremacist attitude.

Northern Ireland
rejected majoritarianism as a workable system.
Its mirror image of minoritarianism is equally unworkable. Condescension or worse dismissal of Unionism
is not a methodology for building productive or sustainable relationships. Unionism and Unionists have interests and
needs that they can identify, wish to legitimately pursue and satisfy. Northern Ireland works best when both political
communities buy in not just one. The
disturbing thing is such basics need both to be repeated and more importantly
accepted.